How To Make A Website In 10 Steps

Learning how to make a website may seem daunting, but the best website builders can help you create an impressive site without knowing how to code or hiring a web developer.

Whether setting up a business website to generate income or having fun with a personal blog, it’s now easier than ever to start building your online presence.

Continue reading to find out how to make a website from the ground up, from choosing a domain registrar to setting up online stores and selling merchandise.

How To Make A Website In 10 Steps

While the website creation process involves many elements, learning the basics and creating content to attract more visitors is easier than you may think.

We’ve covered everything you need to know to make the most of your website builder and create a stunning website that will keep visitors returning for more.

So, with that said, here’s everything you need to know to make a website step-by-step in 2024:

Step 1: Define Your Website’s Purpose

There are millions of websites available online, each with a different core architecture and functionality depending on its purpose.

As such, before you begin researching the many website builders available to create a website, you must clearly define your website’s core function.

Once this has been clarified, you’ll have a clear idea of your site’s content, how you hope to present it, and the website design timeline for putting it together.

You’ll also be familiar with the tools and features needed to promote your content and engage with your audience productively.

If you’re having trouble defining your website’s purpose in detail, research your close competitors to see what they include on their websites.

This will also help you better understand your target market and how your competitors attract website visitors and establish authority.

Here’s an overview of the common types of websites to help you refine your decision-making process:

Selling Products Or Services

One of the most common reasons for setting up a website is to expand your potential sales with an online store to sell your company’s products or services.

This could be anything from a local arts and crafts business selling merchandise to a multinational corporation reaching a worldwide audience.

It can also cover selling digital services such as online courses and other desirable resources that can be purchased directly through a website.

Whatever products or services you sell, you’ll need to use a website builder with e-commerce functionality to process customer payments.

Hosting A Portfolio To Showcase Freelance Skills

If you’re learning how to become a freelancer and struggling to attract new clients, you can set up a website to showcase your skills and experience.

Such websites are relatively straightforward, with appropriate pages for your work depending on the nature of your freelance business.

For artists, graphic designers, and other visual-based freelancers, this means using a website builder platform capable of smoothly loading image and video assets.

This type of website is easy to set up in a few hours using a builder with a drag-and-drop user interface to quickly place assets in the desired position.

Establishing An Online Brand

A website is an effective way to strengthen awareness if you’re a musician, social media influencer, or simply want to promote your new brand.

The best website builders are geared toward various marketing initiatives, such as helping you promote your brand on social media platforms and elsewhere.

Complete search engine optimization tools help you to climb through Google’s ranks, with comprehensive keyword tracking to iterate SEO over time.

Setting Up A Personal Blog

Not all websites are designed to generate income or increase brand awareness, with personal blogs among the most popular types available online.

With automatic sharing to social media pages and a wealth of options to improve engagement with your audience, a good website builder is essential.

Once your blog gains a loyal following, you can monetize it through guest posts, affiliate marketing, and selling merchandise in your store.

Generating Revenue Through Affiliate Marketing & Ads

Some websites are expressly set up to generate revenue through their content, with affiliate programs and ad placements to earn money.

This can include using Google AdSense to display ads on the site’s pages, typically built around a particular topic or niche interest.

This topic helps build authority by outlining the keywords needed to drive traffic to the website and generate revenue through ad clicks and purchases.

If you need help envisioning how the site will evolve, you can use an all-around website builder to get started and expand your content as you go.

The best website builders deliver plenty of scope for growth and can be updated to introduce new features, such as an online store for generating revenue.

Discover Friday’s website builder.

Step 2: Establish Your Goals

Once you’ve determined your website’s core purpose, you should take the time to understand your short—and long-term goals.

This means deciding whether to hire a professional web designer to help create the site and any other necessary outsourcing.

Whether creating a website around a busy stay-at-home mom schedule or working on a small business website, these goals will help you manage your time.

Short term goals

When you set out to create a website, you’ll have a basic to-do list covering a range of tasks needed to get the site up and running and begin to add new content.

Such goals help to lay the groundwork for future site expansion, determining what assets you need to upload and how to drive traffic and customers.

Setting up all your core pages, creating an email list, and linking your site to social media pages are common short-term goals worth considering./

Long term goals

Any business owner understands the importance of setting yearly goals in your company to help keep track of the bigger picture when planning for the future.

The same principle applies when creating a website: long-term goals give you a positive vision of where you’ll be in the future.

These goals can include increasing your ranking in search engines for important keywords and setting benchmarks for overall website traffic.

They can also include filling out pillar posts and clusters for content marketing to increase conversion rates and achieve other performance-based metrics.

Step 3: Decide Your Domain Name

When determining the cost of building a website, you’ll need to consider the price of a domain name, as this can vary widely.

The first thing to consider is how well your domain name reflects the nature of your website so that visitors are not confused.

A strong domain name is typically short and memorable, so if you don’t have an established brand name, it pays to get feedback on your ideas.

This means keeping the name under 15 characters and avoiding using slang terminology or words with complex spellings and obscure meanings.

You should also avoid numbers and hyphens in your name, which can create confusion when customers input your web address.

Your domain name should also feature strong SEO-based keywords, which will help it rank higher in Google search results.

Choosing the domain name type

Next, you’ll want to decide on the type of domain name, and while a .com address is most common, other types, such as .org, may be more appropriate.

When all else fails, consider experimenting with a domain name generator, such as Shopify’s free tool, as these can help inspire you if you’re facing a creative block.

While some website builders will require you to use a dedicated domain registrar, others include a free domain as part of their basic packages.

If in doubt, opt for a website builder that offers custom domain name registration so you save time and get your website up and running.

Step 4: Choose A Web Hosting Provider

Once you’ve decided on your domain name, it’s time to research the various web hosting services available to bring your site online.

Choosing the best web host platform can make a big difference in managing your content and acquiring security protection.

While most web hosting services include basic features in their packages, some will require additional fees to access advanced tools.

Here are some of the critical factors you need to consider when choosing a web host:

Understanding Your Site’s Requirements

Defining your website’s purpose is fundamental to choosing the most appropriate web hosting service for your personal or business requirements.

Each web host offers various features for its users, and these can be impacted by multiple factors, such as the amount of web traffic and online sales features.

Some web hosting services specialize in e-commerce tools, while others are oriented toward blogging, so choose one that best matches your needs.

Server Reliability

Different web hosting services offer various levels of all-around performance and server reliability to ensure the stability of your site.

In addition to checking web hosts’ performance using a server monitoring tool, you should research their uptime scores.

The industry standard uptime score is 99.95% of uptime, while anything below 99% should be avoided at all costs to ensure your site performs optimally.

Some web hosting providers offer increased server stability when upgrading to a premium account, so check this when choosing a service.

Subscription Pricing

Whether opening your first small blog or looking for a web hosting provider for your business, each provider has its own pricing.

While some website builders include basic features in the standard package, they can quickly accumulate additional fees with plugins and other tools.

On the other hand, some platforms keep things straightforward with a simple pricing plan that includes everything you need at a set price.

Knowing renewal prices is vital since some web hosting providers can hike their prices in these situations.

Explore Friday’s pricing.

Essential Features

While many website hosting companies include the basic features needed for website creation, other features and tools can require additional expenses.

Check to see if the provider includes the features you’ll need in the subscription cost, such as file management via FTP/SFTP access.

A user-friendly dashboard and editing system are also essential to getting up and running, as is the ability to check your site’s performance and speed.

Customer Support Quality

When you begin to create a website, you may run into issues that you need to learn how to address yourself, in which case, you need a provider with excellent customer support.

This means selecting a web hosting provider with 24/7 support to solve technical issues as soon as they arise.

The best web hosting services deliver 24/7 customer support, using professional technical knowledge to resolve issues quickly.

They also offer customers many tutorials and other FAQ resources to help them troubleshoot problems and keep their sites running.

Security Features

Another key consideration when choosing a hosting service is the level of security features included in the package to protect against fraud and hackers.

This is particularly important when setting up an e-commerce website and hosting sensitive customer information such as personal bank records.

As such, you should choose a web hosting service with a robust firewall and SSL certificates as part of the subscription package.

Reliable web hosting services also bring peace of mind with secure data centers, resource access control, and DDoS protection.

Step 5: Select A Website Template

Website templates are incredible time-saving features that website builders use to help you get your site up and running in just a few hours.

They can help you get started, whether you’re setting up a blog on a free website or building an online presence to sell products through your store.

Depending on your platform, you can choose from various website templates tailored to specific requirements.

Some of the most popular website builder templates you can access include:

• Online stores selling physical products
• Online stores selling services in the local area
• Insurance and financial institutions
• Personal blogs
• Digital marketing companies
• Design agencies
• Manual labor and tradesmen businesses
• Medical and healthcare organizations
• Restaurants, bars, and nightclubs
• Sports and fitness businesses

Once you have chosen the best template for your site’s needs, you can easily edit it to your liking by dragging and dropping new assets onto the layout.

It’s an easy way to start building a visually striking site, with all the core functionality ready to go from the moment you begin.

Browse Friday’s templates.

Step 6: Build Out The Essential Pages

Now that you’ve chosen a web hosting service and selected a layout using one of the many website templates available, it’s time to add relevant pages.

While there is some variation between different types of websites concerning the pages they use, most sites feature a selection of essential pages.

These include:

• Home page: A home page is the first point of entry for visitors to your site and is found on all types of websites, from blogs to business sites. This page should encapsulate your product or service and include your strongest content to capture visitors’ attention and retain their interest.
• About page: This page is ideal for explaining your company’s ethos in more detail or establishing why you’re an authority on your website’s subject. It’s also a great way to humanize your content and create a deeper connection with your readers.
• Contact page: A contact page is where all your contact information is located, from your professional email address to telephone numbers and social media pages. You can also include map locations, business hours, and live chat systems on this page.
• Terms of Service/Privacy Policy page: If you have terms and conditions for your products or services or need to clarify how you handle information from site visitors, this is the page to use.
• Support/FAQ page: Websites offering services and products that deal with customers should include a page where they can get in touch to address any issues. By adding frequently asked questions, you can also help them find the answers they need more quickly.

Most website builders include many great templates, each with these core pages as part of its architecture, which you can edit.

If you need any additional core pages for your business website or blog, a website builder will allow you to add these quickly so they’re ready to edit.

Tip: Learn how to start a business with no money.

Step 7: Optimize Your Site For SEO

Whatever the nature of your website, you’ll want to ensure it reaches as many relevant people as possible so you can establish a loyal following.

This is especially important if you’re looking into how to monetize a blog or set up an online store to see your company’s products or services.

Unless you address these issues, your online presence will face ongoing restrictions in growth and potential to generate revenue and repeat business.

Fortunately, a comprehensive website builder will provide the tools to focus your SEO efforts on the best keywords to increase traffic.

They can also ensure this optimization works across all devices, bringing your website to the top of the rankings on smartphones and laptops.

Ultimately, if you’re wondering why no one’s reading your marketing content, it could be a case of suboptimal search engine optimization across your website.

Here’s a breakdown of the various ways you can improve content to improve search engine optimization for your own website:

• Improved keyword research: Keywords are essential for ensuring your written content ranks as highly as possible on search engines and should be a priority when conducting SEO. There are lots of great tools to help you choose the best keywords to optimize your site’s performance.
• Meta titles and descriptions: Like keywords, meta titles, and descriptions help improve your site’s ranking and authority when assessed by search engine algorithms. You can optimize these like you address keyword research for blog posts.
• Internal and external links: Google’s algorithms favor websites with active internal and external links that engage the reader in content. As such, all your articles and other landing pages should use these links as a matter of course.
• Getting backlinks to your website: Backlinks are links on other websites that drive traffic to your content and are another great way to help you rise through the ranks on search engines such as Google and Bing.

The best website builders feature a strong suite of SEO tools designed to optimize the above aspects of web design for competitive ranking in search engines.

While SEO can seem rather arcane to the uninitiated, these tools have been created to cut through the noise of HTML and other coding for ease of use.

This means you can continually check to ensure SEO optimization throughout the website-building process to keep up with your keywords and other assets.

You can also use the website builder’s AI Assistant tool to help with keyword optimization across all the site’s pages.

Once your website is live, you can use a website builder to monitor your keyword performance through Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

While some website builders will require additional fees to access specific analytics tools, others, such as Friday, include these tools as standard in their subscriptions.

As a result, a potentially headache-inducing process can be tackled easily, so your website’s SEO remains healthy and attracts the most relevant visitors.

Read more: Explore our small business startup checklist.

Step 8: Set Up Your Online Store

With an increasing number of shoppers moving back online, setting up an online store is essential for businesses to maximize their full revenue potential.

Fortunately, it’s easy to do this with a website builder, which covers all the relevant tools and processes to help add your inventory and offer payment processing.

Some of the key things to consider when setting up an online store include:

• A user-friendly interface: The best website builders deliver a user-friendly interface that helps customers quickly find their desired products. Features such as clickable images with clear pricing should be a priority when choosing an e-commerce website builder.
• Eye-catching visual content: An online store should strive to achieve the same point-of-sale features of traditional brick-and-mortar retail establishments. In addition to high-resolution images of products, videos can be a great addition to a store’s visual content.
• Mobile-friendly adaptation: Many people shop online using their smartphones, so an online store should include a mobile-friendly adaptation. A good website builder will allow users to check their store’s accessibility and functionality across all devices.
• User reviews: Allowing customers to share their experiences of a product or service is a great way to help others make the best shopping decisions. As such, e-commerce website builders should include the option for user reviews to improve credibility.
• Multiple payment processing methods: There are many online payment processing methods, from traditional bank transfers to Amazon Pay, Stripe, and PayPal. While you won’t include every method on your site, you should choose a flexible e-commerce platform.

Using an e-commerce platform, you can quickly upload your inventory, manage sales and shipping, and reach new customers.

Tip: Sell online with Friday’s e-commerce builder.

Step 9: Start Creating Content

A great-looking website means nothing if it lacks something to keep the audience engaged and coming back for more, so you need to get to work creating content.

Whether you’re writing a blog for fun or committed to selling physical products to a global market, website content is king.

As such, your site should be populated with articles, resources, and media assets that draw the appropriate visitors in while retaining their attention.

Let’s examine the kind of content you can include on your website and the best practices to consider when using a content management system.

Articles & Blog Posts

If you’re a competent writer, consider producing articles with appropriate keywords and cataloging them on a blog page for easy reference.

Since the debate continues about using Chat GPT and artificial intelligence regulation, you should primarily focus on unique and original content.

Google search engines can penalize websites that don’t host original content, so avoid plagiarizing work from other websites at all costs.

This content should also be planned out in detail over the following weeks and months so you can interlink articles using internal hyperlinks.

Creating a content plan can help you achieve your business goals and produce relevant content on a schedule.

As your range of content and selection of published keywords continue to grow over time, you can use Google Analytics to refine your content plan further.

Also, consider working with professional writers, with the best freelance websites hosting profiles for writers of all different skills and budgets.

Share your insights with Friday’s blog builder.

Sponsored & Affiliate Posts

If you don’t have the time or patience to write dozens of articles, consider working with other companies on sponsored and affiliate posts.

This content is great for generating revenue, particularly once your website is more established and attracting a consistent, regular audience.

The potential for content is broad, whether you’re looking for the best affiliate programs for mom bloggers or sponsored posts from local businesses.

It’s a popular way to integrate a passive income stream into your content creation model by offering consistent commission rates to your partners.

Photo, Audio & Video Galleries

Visually striking assets are crucial for retaining interest when visitors arrive at your website, letting them know what to expect at a glance.

Most website builders allow users to add photos, videos, and other visual assets to pages using a drag-and-drop feature for ease of placement and layout.

You can liven things up by adding these visual assets in a carousel so visitors can browse through images with a simple button click.

There are also options to autoplay videos when a page is loaded and to add eye-catching images and animations to backgrounds and headers.

If you have a podcast you want to include on your website, you can use a builder to embed these on a page for easy access for your audience.

E-Books & Educational Resources

Whether you’re running a food blog and sharing e-books of favorite recipes or offering user guides for your clients, these resources are great for attracting visitors.

Such e-books and other educational resources offer high-level value to readers, establishing your authority and reputation in your chosen domain.

While creating these resources can be time-consuming, once they’re on your website, they’ll act as evergreen content, generating consistent traffic growth.

Content writing is also ranked among the best freelance jobs for beginners, so you can use their services to help create these resources for you.

Learn more: Find out how to sell digital products.

Step 10: Promote Your Website

Great search engine optimization is essential to increasing your rankings, but you need to engage in promotion to reach a limited audience.

To fully capitalize on your website content, you must promote it to attract and retain new readers through organic traffic.

Fortunately, plenty of tools and methods are available to promote a website, and you don’t need a huge marketing budget.

Just as freelancers use a variety of methods to get more Connects on Upwork to expand their business, website owners can also take a multi-pronged approach.

The best website builders have an interface that includes a range of tools for organizing and running promotional campaigns.

Using these tools, you can easily set up promo campaigns, schedule them as and when needed, and analyze performance to iterate future campaigns.

Let’s examine some of the leading promotional methods to drive additional website traffic and increase your readership and customer base.

Social Media

Social media is a popular method of promotion because you can include buttons to share your website’s content across all the main social media channels.

You can pay for ads on Facebook and Instagram targeted towards users who have expressed interest in your topic of choice through user profiles.

If your audience engages with your social media posts, you can respond to their comments and use this engagement to build word of mouth.

Should you build your audience to a large enough size, you may be able to attract the best Instagram influencers and other high-profile content creators to promote your content.

Email Marketing

A more traditional method for promoting a website is email marketing, a tried and tested tactic for engaging with customers and building up repeat business.

You can set up an email subscription service on your website to inform followers about new offers and the latest content.

Creating subscriber-only content and contests is another great way to add value through exclusivity and establish a loyal customer base.

Paid Advertising

If you have a small business website focusing on a particular niche product or service and have a marketing budget to play with, paid advertising is worth considering.

This will allow you to post ads on other websites linking directly to your landing pages or online store while targeting likely customers.

You can also partner with other websites to create sponsored posts about your own website, with backlinks to help boost your SEO domain rating.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click internet advertising is another popular method for bringing traffic to a website from search engines and converting it into sales.

It works by paying a fixed price for each ad click you receive in a search engine and setting a daily budget to get the best return on investment possible.

While it can take some time to appreciate how PPC impacts growth and the potential risks, it’s another promotional tool worth considering for your website.

YouTube Videos

Creating and posting videos to YouTube and embedding them on your blog or business website can further improve your online visibility.

You don’t have to go viral for this method to work, as Google will index your content, which drives additional traffic to your website content.

You can also consider featuring targeted ads for your business on other content creators’ YouTube videos, which has the potential to yield high conversion rates.

Many freelancers want to make money on Upwork creating and editing video content, so if you have the funds, consider paying for their services.

Summary

So, there you have it, a complete breakdown of everything you need to know to build a website, from choosing a catchy domain name to uploading high-quality content.

A great website builder streamlines the entire process so you can set up a professional-looking website without needing to write any code or hire a web developer.

Once you start bringing in more traffic, you can make the most of your website builder’s features to expand your content and build a loyal audience online.